Friday night lights get an early start in Putnam County this year.
Only two of the Kanawha Valley’s 12 prep football teams dare to open their preseason practices with midnight workouts late next Sunday, and both hail from Putnam County — Class AAA Hurricane and Class A Buffalo.
High school practices begin around West Virginia on July 30, with most schools doing drills in the mornings or late afternoon to beat the summer heat. Hurricane and Buffalo, however, will do just that by hitting the field before dawn’s early light.
Jeremy Taylor, Hurricane’s seventh-year coach, has done the midnight special each season since taking over for Willis May, who also started with late-night workouts on the Redskins’ first day of practice.
“It kind of works out for us,’’ Taylor said. “We make it like a regular practice, just at midnight. It’s not necessarily what I want, but it’s what the kids want. If the majority of kids say they don’t want to do it, we won’t. But you’ve got to give them some say. It’s their program.’’
At Buffalo, second-year coach Brian Batman is continuing a tradition that started with last year’s midnight practice, trying to drum up enthusiasm for the coming season.
“I just leave it up to the kids,’’ Batman said. “Last year, they seemed to enjoy it and the overwhelming response was to do it again, so we’re going to do it.
“I had a group of parents delegate [responsibilities] last year. Music was playing, and it kind of turned into a tailgate party. Hopefully that happens this year.’’
Instead of working out at Buffalo’s yet-to-be-opened field behind the high school, which was used last for year’s midnight practice, Batman expects to be back at the old/current field, located just down W.Va. 62.
Both coaches were asked if holding the midnight (aka late-Sunday) workout – and keeping their players up into the wee hours — wreaks havoc on the team’s practice schedule for later in the day on Monday, or the rest of the week for that matter.
“We have a secondary practice,’’ Batman said, “but we don’t do it until early evening or maybe 3 p.m. There’s time to go home, get some rest and get back.
“The hardest part is worrying about the kids and making sure everyone gets home OK. We give each of them a coach’s number and ask the kids to let them know they got home OK before we leave. Obviously, it’s a big concern. Thankfully for me, we’re pretty young with a lot of sophomores and freshmen, so a lot of mommies and daddies will pick up their kids to take them home because not many kids are driving themselves this year.’’
Taylor said the Redskins are “looking to get creative’’ with how their put their hours in, owing to the midnight moves.
“We’ll come back Monday about 4 o’clock and go through a regular two-hour practice,’’ he said. “Tuesday maybe starts what I guess you’d call two-a-days, but our numbers are so low [only about 55 players expected] that we can only get so much in. We just time things for what’s best for this team, and it changes yearly.
“But it’s not so much straight two-a-days where you practice three hours, get three hours off and then go for three hours. After an hour and a half or two hours, you’ve lost them and you’re just hitting your head against the wall. We’ll probably get in everything we need to do [in less than three hours].’’
Batman was first introduced to midnight practices in 2016, when he was an assistant on Taylor’s staff at Hurricane, and saw how the team’s morale spiked.
“I just saw that the kids enjoyed it,’’ Batman said. “I saw the enthusiasm that the Hurricane kids had, so I asked the Buffalo kids last year if they wanted to do it, and they said yes. I left it up to them. All I can do as a head coach is give them the opportunity and if they want to take advantage of it, we’ll do it.’’
A third Putnam County team, Winfield, is also planning a midnight workout, but not for the opening day of statewide practice. For a third straight year, the Generals will go at midnight for the first permissible day of live contact, which this year is Tuesday, Aug. 7.
